Plasma processing apparatuses are widely used in the micro-electronics technical field.
Referring to FIG. 1, FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a construction of a plasma processing apparatus.
The plasma processing apparatus generally comprises an outer shell (not added with a reference number in the figure), in which a reaction chamber 30 is formed. The reaction chamber 30 has a top lid (not shown in the figure) on the top and a vacuum pump 10 under the bottom. A side wall of the outer shell is provided with an opening which commonly takes a square shape. A cantilever support device 90 is inserted through the opening and is fixed on the outer shell while the opening is closed. A part of the cantilever support device 90 located in the reaction chamber 30 is a connection arm 80. A bottom electrode 70 is mounted at an end of the connection arm 80. A support element (not added with a reference number in the figure) is provided on the top of the bottom electrode 70 to support a workpiece; a detachable cover board 12 is provided on the bottom of the bottom electrode 70. Apparently, the plasma processing apparatus 1 can has different constructions.
A workpiece can be transmitted to the support element provided on the top of the bottom electrode 70 via a transmitting port 16. A nearly vacuum state can be created and kept in the reaction chamber 30 by the vacuum pump 10. In such a state, gas is input uniformly into the reaction chamber 30 through a gas distribution device (not shown in the figure), and appropriate RF is input into the reaction chamber 30 to excite the gas, and thus a plasma environment can be created and kept on the surface of the workpiece. Since the plasma has a strong ability of etching and deposition, physical or/and chemical reactions such as etching or/and deposition can be carried out between the plasma and the workpiece to achieve an etching pattern or a deposition layer as desired. By-products of the physical or/and chemical reactions above-mentioned are drawn out from an opening 20 on the bottom of the reaction chamber 30 by the vacuum pump 10.
The bottom electrode 70 needs to be maintained after a certain time of operation. At this time, the cantilever support device 90 and the bottom electrode 70 can be taken out from the opening on the side wall of the outer shell as a whole, and then the cover board 12 is detached from the bottom electrode 70 to maintain the related parts in an inner cavity of the bottom electrode 70. When the maintenance operation is finished, the cover board 12 needs to be mounted on the bottom of the bottom electrode 70, and the cantilever support device 90 and the bottom electrode 70 need to be re-mounted from the opening on the side wall of the outer shell. Only in such a way, the plasma processing apparatus can be put into operation again.
Apparently, the maintenance operation above-mentioned relates to several detaching and mounting operations, and especially the bottom electrode 70 needs to be taken out from the reaction chamber 30, which makes the maintenance operation more complex, and wastes time and energy. On the other hand, the maintenance operation during the operation of the plasma processing apparatus is relatively frequent, which makes a total time of standby maintenance of the overall apparatus long and decreases service efficiency of the apparatus. Thus, the above-mentioned plasma processing apparatus has high maintenance cost and low service efficiency. At present, skilled persons in the art need to solve technical problems on how to simplify the process of maintenance operation of a plasma processing apparatus so as to save the maintenance cost and to increase the service efficiency of the plasma processing apparatus.